I recently noted that
datafication has a
Wikipedia article. This is another term for a phenomenon I usually speak
of as
quantification,
following Ritzer and Rescher. I figured I should start keeping a list of
related terms and uses; if you’ve encounter a similar term, please leave
it in the comments. If nothing else, this could be used to improve the
Wikipedia articles.

For enlightenment, anything which does not conform to the standard of
calculability and utility must be viewed with suspicion.
(AdornoHorkheimer
1979, p. 3)

Calculability or quantity rather than quality: Quality is notoriously
difficult to evaluate. How do we assess the quality of a hamburger, or
physician, or a student? Instead of even trying, in an increasing
number of cases, a rational society seeks to develop a series of
quantifiable measures that it takes as surrogates for quality.
This urge to quantify has given great impetus to the development of
the computer and has, in turn, been spurred by the widespread use and
increasing sophistication of the computer. (Ritzer
1983,
p. 103)

Synopsis: (1) Measurement is more than a matter of mere
quantification; only in special cases do quantities actually measure
something. (2) Quantification in and of itself is no guarantor of
objectivity. And actual measurements, though indeed sufficient for
objectivity, is certainly not necessary to it. Objectivity, after all,
does not require quantification. (Rescher 1997, “Objectivity”, p. 75)

The Regime of Computation, then, provides a narrative that
accounts for the evolution of the universe, life, mind, and mind
reflecting on mind by connecting these emergences with computational
processes that operate both in human-created simulations and in the
universe understood as software running on the “Universal Computer” we
call reality. This is the larger context in which code aquires
special, indeed universal, significance. In the Regime of Computation,
code is understood as the discourse system that mirrors what happens
in nature and that generates nature itself. (Hayles 2005, “My Mother
Was a Computer”, p. 27)

This book is not about computers. It is instead about a set of
widespread contemporary beliefs about computers
[computationaism]—beliefs that can be hard to see as such
because of their ubiquity and because of the power of computers
themselves. More specifically, it is about the methods computers use
to operate, methods referred to generally as computation.
Computation—as metaphor, method, and organizing fram—occupies a
privileged and under-analyzed role in our culture. Influential new
concepts often emerge alongside technological shifts—they emerged
alongside the shifts to steam power, electricity, and television, for
example (see, e.g., Marvin 1988). (Golumbia 2009, p. 1)

Given this massive scale, it is tempting to understand big data solely
in terms of size. But that would be misleading. Big data is also
characterized by the ability to render into data many aspects of the
world that have never been quantified before; call it
“datafication.” For example, location has been datafied, first
with the invention of longitude and latitude, and more recently with
GPS satellite systems. Words are treated as data when computers mine
centuries’ worth of books. Even friendships and “likes” are datafied,
via Facebook. (CukierMayer-Schoenberger2013rbd)

However compelling some examples of applied Big Data research, the
ideology of dataism shows characteristics of a widespread belief
in the objective quantification and potential tracking of all kinds of
human behavior and sociality through online media technologies.
Besides, dataism also involves trust in the (institutional) agents
that collect, interpret, and share (meta)data culled from social
media, internet platforms, and other communication technologies.
(VanDijk2014ddd, p. 198)